


among the fields of gold

by irnan



Series: mischiefmanaged!verse [1]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Gen, mischiefmanaged!verse, rosie weasley is more awesome than anyone ever, teddy lupin ftw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-14
Updated: 2011-12-14
Packaged: 2017-10-27 08:07:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irnan/pseuds/irnan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You'll remember me when the west wind moves/ upon the fields of barley. (or: nextgen!marauders ftw.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	among the fields of gold

**Author's Note:**

> Title and summary nicked from Sting. (Starts out frivolous and goes downhill from there.)

_i. for once it's really not james' fault_

So all right, Jim's not exactly a paragon of virtue. The Dread Mrs Packenham came to her nickname through provocation as much as honesty, for example. And there was that time in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom in first year when he tried to get into the Chamber of Secrets and only succeeded in blowing up two main water pipes and flooding the entire floor (Uncle George had wept tears of pride, or so Dad claimed, when Mum had told him the story), and the time he turned all Parkinson's books into toads - it was an accident, all right, latent family talent for Transfiguration - and yes, in all fairness, he was the one who basically pinched the Marauder's Map off of Dad (who'd categorically refused to hand it over when James asked, stating flatly that he preferred none of his children get expelled from school before they had a chance to take their OWLS, but who must, surely, have noticed the map's absence by now - four years later! - and has yet to say a word about it).

But not even he is this bloody _blond_.

"Oh my God, Chelsea," says Moira. "How do you pull this off? Just... just how, Chels?"

Chelsea glares. "I didn't know," she says, "that it would do this. Since when do birds gnaw through wood, they don't even have teeth!"

"Dinosaurs had teeth," says Linc.

Everyone looks at him

"Some species evolved into birds and those had teeth," he explains

Ned digs the toe of his shoe into a crack between the floor tîles. "So Chelsea took a trip down Knockturn Alley and accidentally bought a most probably highly illegal be-toothed wood-gnawing termite dinosaur bird for a pet instead of a canary?" he asks, incredulous.

Jim sighed. "Well, it sounds like Chelsea," he says. "Other than that, I think I'm speechless."

"I'm sure we all consider that a welcome first," says Linc. He and Moira grin at each other. Honestly, some days the only way to tell them apart is to remind yourself that Moira's the twin with the longer hair.

"I did not," says Chelsea with dignity, "buy Peterkin down Knockturn Alley. You wouldn't catch me _dead_ down Knockturn Alley."

"Wherever the hell you got it, what in the name of Merlin's week-old unlaundered _pants_ made you let it loose?"

Chelsea crossed her arms over her chest. "Hagrid said -"

"Oh blimey, Chels -"

"Speaking of catching," says Ned, nudging Jim's elbow. Along the other side of the lake, several grown-up figures are hurrying towards them; one, Jim is fairly sure, will be Neville, and unless he completely overestimates both Lily's indiscretion and her need to share every single aspect of her life with Mum and Dad, someone's Floo’ing the Godric's Hollow house right _now_.

He could still make a run for it. Teddy would hide them. They could live in the attics of Grimmauld Place until they found a way out of the country. Hugo says Egypt's pretty cool; but Uncle Bill and Aunt Fleur might shop them to Mum and Dad. Or worse, Granma Weasley. Probably best to make straight for Outer Mongolia.

Jim sighs. "I think," he says. "it's a bit late for that, Ned. They've probably noticed we've just collapsed half the Quidditch stands."

"On the up side, nobody's panicking," says Ned, straight-faced.

"Practice," says Moira glumly.

 

 

 _ii. they meet on the train, which is a family tradition_

James had gone to find Ned; Vic had checked on them and then disappeared as well. The compartment was empty and London was flying by in a blur of colour. Albus and Rose settled in on either side of the window for the first decent talk they'd had in two weeks - all that running around Diagon Alley and packing and unpacking and last-minute tidying and last-time-you'll-do-this-for-four-months; Al had barely managed to talk to James and Lily, let alone Rose or Hugo. They were dissecting Uncle George's new product range and making vague plans for a sneak attack on Freddie and Vic when the door opened.

It was the pale boy from the platform - the Malfoy boy.

"Hullo," he said. "Mind if I join you?"

Well, it was a bit hard to tell. His Dad featured more or less prominently in just about every story their parents had about their own school days, and rarely in a favourable light.

 _Be brave_ , Dad had said last night. _Be strong. Be clever, and most of all, Albus, be kind_.

"Pull up a bench," said Al.

"We were just gossiping," said Rose with a dimpled smile. "Family stuff."

"Ah." Malfoy sat down next to her, opposite Al. He was as scrawny as James always said Al himself was, but his hair was a heck of a lot tidier. "I don't have all that much family to gossip about," he added suddenly. "I s'pose it must be fun?"

"You can have some of ours," said Rose. "We've -"

"Got loads," said Malfoy. "You're Weasleys."

Beat of silence.

"Technically, I'm a Potter," said Al, and promptly wanted to pinch himself for letting his good resolutions waft off out the window and into the sunset so quickly.

Malfoy grinned. It made his whole face change: he looked scrawny but mischievous instead of scrawny and haughty. "I know. My Dad was adamant that I'm not to make friends with you."

Still grinning, he stuck out a hand.

"It's Scorpius, by the way."

Rose and Al exchanged quick looks. Then she grinned at him. He grinned back.

Al took the proffered hand. "Albus," he said.

"And I'm Rose."

Scorpius shook hands with her as well.

"So just to get the weird awkward questions out of the way first," he said to Al, pulling a box of Chocolate Frogs out of his robes and offering them round, "but what's your Dad really like, anyway?"

 

 

 _iii. lily and hugo save the day (with a little help from grandad james)_

It was Lily's own fault that she was still bent over her Transfiguration homework at half past ten that night; she hadn't been listening properly when the assignment was set and now she had an extra four inches to cram in when as far as she was concerned she had already said everything there was to say on the subject. Jim always liked to say - tragically - that it wasn't easy being the grandchildren of a near-genius prodigal unregistered Animagus in Transfiguration, especially now everyone knew he’d been a near-genius prodigal unregistered Animagus. Lily was starting to think he was right.

Anyway, she was yawning and scrubbing at her eyes with her hand when the portrait hole opened and Lexie King climbed in.

They stared at each other. Lily put her quill down, feeling suddenly grown-up and responsible for the younger girl.

"You were out late," she said.

Lexie swallowed, glared, shrugged - apparently unable to decide if she was careless or annoyed or what. "What's it to you?"

Lily did that thing Mum always did when she glared at you in silence and waited for you to crumble and confess without further prompting. It worked wonders. Lexie went red and twisted her hands together.

"It's not my fault," she said desperately. "I just - I was homesick, and -"

"And?" asked Lily. Lexie's homesickness was not news to anyone in Gryffindor Tower; she'd always lived in Germany with her mum and dad till now, but they hadn't wanted her to go to Durmstrang, and now Gryffindor House was suffering for it just as much as Lexie herself.

"And Parkinson from fifth year said he knew a bloke in the village who could get me some stuff from home and that he'd sort it out next Hogsmeade weekend and all I'd have to do was meet him at the school boundaries tonight with the money," Lexie said in a rush.

Lily stood up. "So you went?"

She was getting a bad feeling about this.

"Yes," said Lexie, miserable.

"But?"

Lexie shrugged, looking helpless and upset. "I didn't like him."

"No one likes Parkinson, Lexie!"

"Not Parkinson. The bloke. From the village. He - he looked at me funny. At least I think he did. He was wearing a hood, and -"

But she'd said enough. Dad and Uncle Ron had more than one story between them about the inadvisability of concluding contracts with hooded blokes from the village who’d been referred to you by malicious third parties. Baby dragons were the _least_ of it.

Lily charged up to the boys' dorms to wake Jim, and found his bed empty. And Ned's.

Hell's teeth and bacon burgers. And Dad always said there was no such thing as a coincidence. But Jim's bedside drawer was ajar, and there was a scruffy-looking bit of parchment sticking out of it...

It _couldn't_ be.

It was.

She snatched it and went downstairs to wake Hugo, who groused until he understood what was going on, and then leapt out of bed and came back to the common room with her.

"So you stay out past curfew, you sneak down to the gates, you meet Parkinson, the bloke from the village arrived, and then what?" asked Hugo intently.

"Well, they talked. About... stuff. I mean."

Lily had a hold of her wand by now and was hugely tempted to try a jinx. Or three.

"What stuff?" Hugo was far more patient.

"Your. OK, your family, your Dad. Lily's Dad. And Parkinson said I was in Gryffindor and - and loads of people ask about your Dad, Lily, everyone in my whole family wants to know if I know the Potters -"

"Lexie," Lily interrupted fiercely. "I'll handle it. Go to bed."

Lexie paused, anxious. "You'll get expelled, you'll all get expelled, it'll be -"

"Go to bed, Lexie. _Now_."

She went, casting doubtful glances back at them over her shoulder, but she went. Hugo looked at Lily. "Rosie - Al -"

"We're not going to get into Ravenclaw common room at this time of night," said Lily, fingering the parchment she'd taken from Jim's beside cabinet.

“And the school bounds are huge, we’ll never find them.”

"There's only one thing to do."

She put the parchment down on top of her Transfiguration homework and tapped it with her wand. Hugo's eyes went round as saucers. "Is that -"

" _I solemnly swear I am up to no good_."

( _help us, prongs_ -)

There they were: Jim, Ned, Parkinson, a bloke apparently called Adam McAllister, standing by the school gate -

" _Merlin's pants_ ," Hugo yelled, sounding amazingly like Uncle Ron, "if he's on the map, he's _in the school grounds_!"

They bolted for the portrait hole. The Fat Lady was hugely indignant - _your parents used to do this sort of thing and I never liked to put up with it from them!_ \- and that was what gave Lily the Idea.

"Make a noise!"

Hugo cottoned on instantly. "Filch is a hundred if he's a day and a Squib besides, he won't be able to do a thing!"

"No," Lily paused to run headlong at a suit of armour and knocked it off its plinth, bellowing in creaky anger and making a noise fit to wake the dead, "but I'll lay money on it that that's _exactly_ why he'll fetch a teacher!"

They swung round a corner and raced along the corridor, slammed an open classroom door, jumped past a yowling, spitting Mrs Reed, careening down the main staircase: from up above, there was a familiar cry.

"Students out of bed!"

Crash through the front doors. Their feet crunched loudly on the gravel and stone in the quiet; Lily chanced another look at the map in the moonlight and felt something tight and sharp squeezing her insides - the McAllister dot was coming towards them, hot on the heels of Jim and Ned's; Parkinson's was motionless by the school gate at the very edge of the map. Her lungs were burning and her legs hurt but Jim Jim Jim and she was a Gryffindor now and a Potter besides.

Behind them, yes!, a clamour and a yell, someone running, a curse lit up the path ahead and she saw someone dodge it, fire one back - there was Jim , grim and furious, Ned beside him in the dark and both of them filthy and bruised where they'd slipped and fallen and run - Lily raised the map to her face again and saw the path fork an inch before her own label, off to the right and running swiftly and smoothly across the parchment into the trees, making a great loop along the slippery dark face of the hillside and up towards the Astronomy tower where there was - a back way into the castle proper.

"This way!" she shouted to her brother, and nearly tripped in astonishment when he followed without question. Ned was cursing under his breath but paused long enough to light up the new path with his wand. Lily could see it on the map plain as anything, but in real life it was scarcely a deer trail, a darkened streak in the grass. At the junction Hugo slid to a stop and held up his wand.

The man McAllister bolted up the path towards him, wand out.

" _Petrifi_ -"

" _Stu_ -"

" _Protego_ ," shouted Jim, throwing a Shield Charm between them. "You idiot little git, run!"

The Shield Charm held just long enough for them to disappear in the trees, and by then the teachers had got there.

*********

"That is so unfair there aren't even words for it," said Al next morning.

"Sorry," said Jim. "But, you know, the idea was to send the King girl back to bed and hex Parkinson into the next millennium. I didn't know he was bringing a friend."

"What did he want?" asked Lily quietly.

Jim's mouth twisted. "What they all want," he said. "A dead Potter." He reached out and tapped the Marauder's Map, lying on the table between them. "Thank God for Grandad James, and for Sirius and Remus."

It was a glib explanation and a grim one. Lily wasn't satisfied with it, and she had a feeling neither of her brothers really were either, but they all knew no teacher was going to tell them anything. They'd have to go to Dad instead. Dad never lied to them. By now everyone knew that the intruder was locked in the dungeons, guarded at all times by half a dozen security trolls, every creature Hagrid could put on the job and at least three staff members. There was even a rumour that Dad himself was coming to arrest the rotter with the entire Auror department at his heels.

Neville had been giving them funny looks all morning; he'd known them too long not to make a few educated guesses about last night's uproar. Filch was in the hospital wing, supposedly recovering from a heart attack. Lexie King had red-rimmed eyes and a guilty look, and Rosie was lecturing Hugo a few tables over. Ned was almost asleep in his porridge, sandwiched between and held up by the Kirkland twins. Lily yawned just looking at him, and put her fingertips on the map.

 _(thank you thank you (love you))_

"Chin up, Lily Luna," said Al. "Transfiguration in ten."

She stuck her tongue out at him. He grinned Dad's cheerful grin back. Jim had packed her and Hugo off to bed instantly on reaching Gryffindor Tower last night, and when she'd come back downstairs this morning she'd found he'd finished her homework for her.

 

 

 _iv. teddy lupin (finally) knocks it out of the park_

The thing about living your life in stages is that when one ends you have a lot of trouble figuring out how to get up to the next one.

Teddy’s NEWTs, you see, were _it_. He was gonna take ‘em and be brilliant in everything, like Dad; he was gonna swish into any job he wanted and get down to the serious business of making himself happy. He could be an Auror like Mum; like Harry. He could work for Gringotts or the Prophet or play Quidditch or open a pub or go into the Ministry or...

Anything, really. But on the whole, Teddy was a sensible sort of bloke, and it didn’t take him long to see that all the choices he was looking at were ones other members of the family had taken before him that  he’d latched onto, rather than ones he’d come up with himself.

He talks about this to Harry one day, early in September: the first September in seven years which he has spent outside of school.

Harry frowns a bit. “You might need to take this one to your Gran,” he says apologetically. “I had my future mapped out for me for so long, Teddy, when I was your age, that what you’ve got sounds like the most incredible freedom to me.”

Teddy wasn’t expecting that for an answer. Harry is always completely, scrupulously honest with him, yes, but... but not _honest_.

It’s a confession that he doesn’t quite know what to do with. He sleeps on it, and then he drinks and parties and dances on it with Nick, with Raj and Liz and Jules and Pete and all the others. Then he sleeps on it again.

Then he decides: Harry’s right. It _is_ a kind of freedom.

*********

Oh, the first stage – the first stage looks like this:

Teddy Lupin grows up Dora Tonks’ son, enmeshed in her home and her relatives, distant and otherwise. Her friends bring him presents, he sleeps in her old bed, he creeps across the passage and sits in her dusty lonely girlhood room when he’s lonely himself, or afraid, or just _misses_ her. Gran does the same thing. They don’t talk about that. It’s nice to have a secret-that’s-not, just between the two of them.

And there’s Harry, of the messy hair and the extravagant presents and the wild spectacular stories. Teddy listens (and feels an ache in his chest, a pull at his heart), but he’s a Tonks _really_ , really properly, not a Lupin or a Black (or a Potter), hardworking, easygoing, normal. Whenever he sees Harry it’s like an explosion in Teddy’s calm, happy, sunshiney life.

He sees Harry a _lot_ , but it’s the same way every time.

So when he goes to Hogwarts his hair’s already yellow. Gran told him his Mum’s was yellow for her whole first year of school. Hagrid ferries him over the lake with a grin and a nod, hands him over to Professor Longbottom, who winks at him and guides him up up and through and to the stool and the Hat and the Hufflepuff table to his left.

Teddy Lupin is his mother’s son. Dad is... Dad gave him Harry. Dad is distant, somehow: benevolent, loving, but distant. Teddy owns nothing of Dad’s. Gran didn’t know him as well as she knew Mum (obviously). He has no Lupin relatives (and suspects this is because most of them are not too keen on having contact with a werewolf’s son). Teddy’s not really a Lupin at all. He’s almost closer to being a Weasley than a Lupin.

(It’s fine this way, he loves his Gran and he loves his Mum, he loves his life, learning things and playing with the local kids and yellow hair -)

 _Aaaaahhhh_ , says the Sorting Hat. _Another Marauder_.

Teddy’s breath catches in his chest and his eyes fly open under the Hat’s brim, staring at nothing, hands gripping the stool like vices clamped to either side. A Marauder...

And suddenly Teddy Lupin grins: a grin he’s never used before, not delighted or joyful or happy or any normal sort of grin at all. It’s sharp-edged and wide and wicked as sin, and the Hat chuckles in his ear and yells GRYFFINDOR, and Teddy Lupin has something of his Dad’s after all.

(He has another thing of his Dad’s two days later by owl post, before he’s told a soul about his Sorting, not even Gran, a very old and tattered yellowing parchment thing, and for a moment panic seizes him – does he know how to work it can he remember – but he’s a Marauder, after all.)

*********

Anyway, he tells Gran he thinks he needs a gap year. She rolls her eyes at him and smiles. “I’m not complaining that you don’t want to move out yet, Teddy.”

Travel! He and Raj wander Europe for a couple months; Jules and Pete join them for the last one. He goes to Egypt to see Bill and Fleur; to Rumania to see Charlie. He goes to New York and learns to play baseball from a girl in Central Park who kisses him in a way Teddy’s not sure any of his (three) previous girlfriends have kissed him. He doesn’t come home until they’ve proven conclusively that they’ll never work and decamps, broken-hearted, on Harry’s sofa for a week until Ginny loses patience, rings Gran, and has her come fetch him home, whereupon he locks himself, still broken-hearted, into his old bedroom for a month or so and lets his hair go grey.

When he comes out, Harry’s there, and he goes white at the sight of him. Teddy stares.

“Merlin’s beard, you look like Remus,” he says. “Change it back, quick. I can’t lecture you like that.”

Teddy laughs for the first time since he and Sarah broke it off.

*********

He interns at the Prophet, mostly for lack of useful occupations for his time and because Aunt Ginny was cursing the archivist up and down the length and breadth of the British Isles and across to Greenland via the Arctic one night at dinner, and Teddy’s good with numbers and order and putting things where they belong. Writes applications while he’s there, quietly, on the sly. There’s no hiding the one to the Auror’s Office from Harry, of course, but he doesn’t talk about it.

His hair’s turquoise these days. Harry’s not an explosion in his life anymore – hasn’t been for a long while; he’s a familiar part of it instead. Teddy knows his stories now, inside out and backwards. Has a few of his own.

James, Al and Lily listen to them, rapt, and Teddy flings his arms wide and switches up the voices and generally takes care to be at least as messily extravagant in everything he does around them as Harry once was, unintentionally, with him.

*******

It’s Christmas and James is bouncing off the walls with excitement and suppressed stories and the need to show off his new spellwork to his brother and sister. Teddy’s eighteen, lanky, clever, careful, purple-haired. It’s been eighteen months: he’s been round half the world and had his heart broken and learned to play baseball, which is a sport the entire family mocks him for liking and refuses to understand.

Victoire told him just the other day that it adds to his mystique, whatever that is.

“I made Smithson take your application through the Minister,” says Harry. “Didn’t want you thinking –“

“I hadn’t earned it?”

“Yeah. Or no. You know.”

Teddy grins. He thinks maybe he might. “I turned it down,” he says.

Harry pauses. “Did you?”

“I thought. I wanted to know if I could. You know, like Mum and Dad.”

“Ah. Yes.”

“I mean, not that Dad was an Auror. But he fought too, and I s’pose I wanted to know... that I wouldn’t have let them down.”

Harry sighs. “You wouldn’t have,” he says. “You won’t. What they wanted for you, Teddy... all they wanted for you was a world where you could be happy. Whatever that took.”

Teddy won’t cry. He doesn’t think they’d want that.

“I had another offer.”

“Oh?”

“From St Mungo’s.”

Silence; crispy cold winter’s night, an owl in the trees, starlight on the snow and their breath steaming in the air.

“From St Mungo’s,” says Harry, and smiles. “Happy Christmas, Teddy.”

*********

Before Teddy leaves, he sneaks into the study and crosses to Harry’s desk. The drawer slides open with a squeak, but for a moment he doesn’t know if he can do it; already the inside pocket of his jacket feels empty, lopsided, bereft.

“Teddy, wotcha doing?”

It’s James, pausing in the doorway, frowning at him curiously. Teddy looks up: sees messy hair and eager grin, strength, determination, talent, restlessness.

He holds it up, the secret they’ll share, their secret-that’s-not, between two fingers. Heavy, smooth, oft-folded, James stares at it in puzzlement for a moment before his mouth forms a round O of amazement.

Teddy lets the Marauder’s Map drop, silently, into his godfather’s desk drawer. Slides it shut and walks away.

“But,” says James, when he reaches the door. “I.”

Teddy looks at him. James begins to grin.

It’s going to be a really good year, this one.

 

 _v. christmas in the cotswolds_

When Mum puts her foot down, sensible people do a bunk. Especially if she's doing it to Granma Weasley. And even _more_ especially at Christmas.

Christmas rotates in this family - last year it was at Uncle Percy's, the year before that at Aunt Fleur and Uncle Bill's, the year before that the ravening hordes descended on Teddy and his Gran (Al and me made Scorpius come with us, over his Dad's strenuous objections, but Mrs Malfoy's more sensible, and besides, we reminded her, Scorpius and Teddy are technically cousins). But it's never been at ours before. Mum, I think, harbours a secret and unreasoning fear that Granma Weasley thinks she's not up to Christmas. I don't know if she might not be right. Mum doesn't do much cooking; that's Dad, or me. And our house is fairly small compared to everyone else's, because Mum insisted on paying for half of it, and she wasn't earning as much then at the Ministry as Dad had at the joke shop before he joined the Aurors.

But we fit - Mum and Dad and Hugo and me - and Jim and Lily and Al and Scorpius in the lounge for sleepovers - and how much more room can you need?

Well, for Christmas, quite a lot. Opinions are split on the Weasley Christmas. All of us have ducked out of it at least once. It's a bit bloody much every year, all things considered, and all us cousins are at school together anyway, and it's not like Muggles who have to travel for hours to see each other. But I don't think it's ever actually occurred to anyone to just change the tradition.

Scorpius says we're unhealthily co-dependent. He says his Dad says it started with Mum and Dad and Uncle Harry and just spiralled out of control from there.

I don't always like Scorpius' Dad. He's sardonic. Sometimes that's funny. Sometimes it really isn't.

Anyway, Mum put her foot down at the annual where-shall-we-have-Christmas-this-year family conference in September, and now she was out the back setting up 48-hour warming spells and tables and sofas - "Merlin's _pants_ , Hermione," said Dad when he saw - I mean, sofas. In December. In the back garden. And then Dad's put to conjuring up rugs to wrap up in while on said sofas.

"Which we wouldn't need if we just had the bloody party inside the house," said Dad.

Mum turned her Glare on him. It never really affects Dad for some reason. " _Where_ inside the house, Ronald?" she asked. "In the attic? Up the chimney?"

Dad tucked his hands into his pockets and sighed. "You know Ginny's actually banned Christmas at her place."

"The two situations are entirely incomparable," said Mum, eyes narrowing.

Hugo and I were watching from the kitchen door, and it was obviously time to go. Mum and Dad don't properly fight often, but when they do, you can see it coming a mile off.

"Dad," I said, "we're going to Al's."

And we did a bunk. There was a note from Jim on the kitchen table to his mum and dad, he'd gone out with the Kirkland twins, and judging by the fact that Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny were feeling safe enough to snog in the study, Al and Lily weren't home either and they’d taken Socks. We snuck out the front door and went to waylay them with a magnificent snowball bombardment on their way home from the newsagent's. It was an absolutely brilliant war, and when we got back Aunt Ginny fed us Granma Weasley's secret recipe stew; but she wouldn't let us stay over.

"Not on Christmas Eve," she said. "Ron and Hermione deserve you on Christmas Eve."

"But Mum's gone mad," said Hugo, pouting.

"She'll be fine," said Aunt Ginny, "and she'll come out of it on Boxing Day a wiser person than when she went in, too."

"Why, what's this moral lesson supposed to be?"

"The net worth of impressing my mother is not equal to the hassle of hosting Christmas," said Aunt Ginny, and grinned.

So we went back, and Dad at least welcomed us with open arms and sobs of relief - well, I exaggerate. But you get my drift. I gotta say, though, the garden looked brilliant. There was a marquee, but without any walls, just the roof, so you could see the house and the hedges and the fields and hills behind. There were sofas and rugs and tables for the food and a lectern - "For Percy's annual speech," said Dad, grinning - and the warming spells were holding, so we could have slept outside perfectly well. It was great.

The kitchen, not so much.

"You're not going to be cooking all night, are you?" said Hugo to Mum, disbelievingly.

"No," said Mum, and got an evil look. "But your Dad is."

"Make that Dad and Rosie," said Dad.

"Over my mutilated, rotting, Inferiused corpse," I said, and then could have bitten my tongue off when Mum went pale and Dad glared.

"Don't make jokes about things like that, Rosie," he said. "Or I'll make you do the Yorkshire Pudding on your own."

"I," said Hugo, "want to get to do the Yorkshire Pudding."

We all looked at him. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared back. Come to think of it, he looked frighteningly like Mum in that moment. This was a shock, because Hugo is normally the baby: he's sweet and good-hearted and never gets into trouble when left to his own devices. But every now and then he gets something into his head and then a giant couldn't budge him.

"All right," said Dad. "Plan B." He caught Mum's eye and winked at her. "We'll _all_ cook."

Mind you, I did all the difficult bits. But correspondingly, Christmas was a runaway success, so there you go. Everyone was in awe of the not-quite-tent, and snuggled in the rugs, and scoffing Hugo's Yorkshire Pudding. Uncle Percy loved his lectern, when he made his speech he banged on the edge of it with his hand three separate times, and every time he did Dad and Aunt Ginny and all The Uncles practically killed themselves, they were trying so hard not to laugh. Mum even got carried away so far as to be on the verge of suggesting to Granma Weasley that we do it again, but luckily Uncle Harry and I were both close by and between the two of us we managed to avert _that_ particular doom.


End file.
